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BreakfastwithNick said:
When I see good directors handling big franchises, like Joss Whedon with Avengers or Sam Mendes with the upcoming Skyfall, it gives me hope that a good director/screenwriter could create some super awesome Star Wars.

Interesting… in all the hullabaloo about Star Wars 7, the these thoughts didn’t cross my mind until a blog post at joystiq mentioned it:

• This merger also includes the rights to Indiana Jones (and Red Tails, Willow and Howard the Duck if anyone cares)

• This merger also includes the rights to the LucasArts video game division, which mostly just makes endless Star Wars video games these days, but once upon a time held a magic spot in all PC gamers hearts with their adventure games such as Sam & Max, Grim Fandango, Maniac Mansion & Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Full Throttle and a few others. A couple of these games have either recently been re-released (via Steam and the like) or revived through new episodic formats (Sam & Max via Telltale Games). Perhaps this could mean renewed interest in these series for mobile gaming platforms? I’d certainly be interested in buying the sequel to Day of the Tentacle.

There’s already speculation talk of an Indy/national treasure crossover, and even before the buyout there was a desire for an Indy/pirates of the Caribbean but I can’t see either of these happening anytime soon. But as a reboot after Ford passes . . . well . . .

As far as Lucasarts goes, NOBODY in the game industry is feeling positive about the buyout. Expect a lot more kinect: star wars and a lot less monkey island. And shovelwear movie property tie-ins, lots of tie-ins. Sad, because new life and a barrel full of money could really fuel someone with a “let’s make Lucasarts the gold-standard” attitude, but Disney isn’t going to put that guy in charge.

Saddest of all is dark horse comics. They’ve done AMAZING books in the universe, always treated it with the utmost respect, and are going to be dropped the day the current contract expires. And marvel is going to be forced by Disney to crank out profit-driven lowest common denominator mass appeal books, rather than trying to elevate them to the worthy-of-cannon quality stories with characters unfamiliar to casual audiences that dark horse has been doing (and that honestly marvel could do as well, if Disney weren’t over their shoulder.) It’s the biggest “caught in the wake” tragedy in all of this. And I’m even a marvel fanboy. . .

EA took a lot of the publishing rights out of LucasArts a long time ago anyway, as far as games are concerned. Disney’s said their focus is all on mobile games, getting away from consoles, but they’d farm out the rights to developers to make games as opportunity presented itself.

November 1, 2012 at 1:00 PMThat $4 Billion George Lucas Is Getting From Disney? He’s Giving it to Education

With the news that George Lucas is selling Lucasfilm to Disney for a reported $4.05 billion, there’s been plenty of speculation over who will write and direct Star Wars: Episode VII and what Lucas, who owns 100 percent of Lucasfilm, will do with all that cash. Will Jar Jar Binks return? No plans for the film have been shared, but a spokesperson for Lucasfilm told The Hollywood Reporter that most of the money will go toward an education foundation.

I really liked Kick Ass and First Class…I thought Layer Cake was unwatchable. First Class would be the closest comparison I suppose, as it was taking an existing movie franchise and rebooting it, and by that standard I thought he did extremely well.